The Critical Period of American History

Members of the Federal Convention

The names of those who for various reasons were absent when the Constitution was signed are given in italics; the names of those who were present, but refused to sign, are given in small capitals.

New Hampshire	John Langdon.
	Nicholas Gilman.
Massachusetts	Elbridge Gerry.
	Nathaniel Gorham.
	Rufus King.
	Caleb Strong.
Connecticut	William Samuel Johnson.
	Roger Sherman.
	Oliver Ellsworth.
New York	Robert Yates.
	Alexander Hamilton.
	John Lansing.
New Jersey	William Livingston.
	David Brearley.
	William Churchill Houston.
	William Paterson.
	Jonathan Dayton.
Pennsylvania	Benjamin Franklin.
	Thomas Mifflin.
	Robert Morris.
	George Clymer.
	Thomas Fitzsimmons.
	Jared Ingersoll.
	James Wilson.
	Gouverneur Morris.
Delaware	George Read.
	Gunning Bedford.
	John Dickinson.
	Richard Bassett.
	Jacob Broom.
Maryland	James McHenry.
	Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer.
	Daniel Carroll.
	John Francis Mercer.
	Luther Martin.
Virginia	George Washington.
	Edmund Randolph.
	John Blair.
	James Madison.
	George Mason.
	George Wythe.
	James McClurg.
North Carolina	Alexander Martin.
	William Richardson Davie.
	William Blount.
	Richard Dobbs Spaight.
	Hugh Williamson.
South Carolina	John Rutledge.
	Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
	Charles Pinckney.
	Pierce Butler.
Georgia	William Few.
	Abraham Baldwin.
	William Pierce.
	William Houstoun.

Of those who signed their names to the Federal Constitution, the six following were signers of the Declaration of Independence:—

Roger Sherman,
Benjamin Franklin,
Robert Morris,
George Clymer,
James Wilson,
George Read.

The ten following were appointed as delegates to the Federal Convention, but never took their seats:—

New Hampshire	John Pickering.
	Benjamin West.
Massachusetts	Francis Dana.
New Jersey	John Nelson.
	Abraham Clark.
Virginia	Patrick Henry (declined).
North Carolina	Richard Caswell (resigned).
	Willie Jones (declined).
Georgia	George Walton.
	Nathaniel Pendleton.

No delegates were appointed by Rhode Island. In a letter addressed to “the Honourable the Chairman of the General Convention,” and dated “Providence, May 11, 1787,” several leading citizens of Rhode Island expressed their regret that their state should not be represented on so momentous an occasion. At the same time, says the letter, “the result of your deliberations... we still hope may finally be approved and adopted by this state, for which we pledge our influence and best exertions.” The letter was signed by John Brown, Joseph Nightingale, Levi Hall, Philip Allen, Paul Allen, Jabez Bowen, Nicholas Brown, John Jinkes, Welcome Arnold, William Russell, Jeremiah Olney, William Barton, and Thomas Lloyd Halsey. The letter was presented to the Convention on May 28th by Gouverneur Morris, and, “being read, was ordered to lie on the table for further consideration.” See Elliot’s Debates, v. 125.

The Constitution was ratified by the thirteen states, as follows:—

1.	Delaware	Dec. 6, 1787.
2.	Pennsylvania	Dec. 12, 1787.
3.	New Jersey	Dec. 18, 1787.
4.	Georgia	Jan. 2, 1788.
5.	Connecticut	Jan. 9, 1788.
6.	Massachusetts	Feb. 6, 1788.
7.	Maryland	April 28, 1788.
8.	South Carolina	May 23, 1788.
9.	New Hampshire	June 21, 1788.
10.	Virginia	June 25, 1788.
11.	New York	July 26, 1788.
12.	North Carolina	Nov. 21, 1789.
13.	Rhode Island	May 29, 1790.

PRESIDENTS OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

1.	Peyton Randolph of Virginia	Sept. 5, 1774.
2.	Henry Middleton of South Carolina	Oct. 22, 1774.
	Peyton Randolph	May 10, 1775.
3.	John Hancock of Massachusetts	May 24, 1775.
4.	Henry Laurens of South Carolina	Nov. 1, 1777.
5.	John Jay of New York	Dec. 10, 1778.
6.	Samuel Huntington of Connecticut	Sept. 28, 1779.
7.	Thomas McKean of Delaware	July 10, 1781.
8.	John Hanson of Maryland	Nov. 5, 1781.
9.	Elias Boudinot of New Jersey	Nov. 4, 1782.
10.	Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania	Nov. 3, 1783.
11.	Richard Henry Lee of Virginia	Nov. 30, 1784.
12.	Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts	June 6, 1786.
13.	Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania	Feb. 2, 1787.
14.	Cyrus Griffin of Virginia	Jan. 22, 1788.

Footnotes

1 In recent years Georgia has been one of the first states to abandon this bad practice.

2 I suppose it was this same Mason Weems that was afterward known in Virginia as Parson Weems, of Pohick parish, near Mount Vernon. See Magazine of American History, iii. 465–472; v. 85–90. At first an eccentric preacher, Parson Weems became an itinerant violin-player and book-peddler, and author of that edifying work, The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes equally Honourable to Himself and Exemplary to his Young Countrymen. On the title-page the author describes himself as “formerly rector of Mount Vernon Parish,”—which Bishop Meade calls preposterous. The book is a farrago of absurdities, reminding one, alike in its text and its illustrations, of an overgrown English chap-book of the olden time. It has had an enormous sale, and has very likely contributed more than any other single book toward forming the popular notion of Washington. It seems to have been this fiddling parson that first gave currency to the everlasting story of the cherry-tree and the little hatchet.

3 History of England in the Eighteenth Century, iii. 447.

4 A very interesting account of these troubles may be found in the first volume of Professor McMaster’s History of the People of the United States.

5 This subject has been treated in a masterly manner by Mr. H.B. Adams, in an essay on Maryland’s Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States, published in the Third Series of the admirable Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Politics. I am indebted to Mr. Adams for many valuable suggestions.

6 It would be in the highest degree erroneous, however, to suppose that the Constitution of the United States is not, as much as any other, an instance of evolution from precedents. See, in this connection, the very able article by Prof. Alexander Johnston, New Princeton Review, Sept., 1887, pp. 175–190.

7 The slave-population of the United States, according to the census of 1700, was thus distributed among the states:—

North.
New Hampshire	158
Vermont	17
Massachusetts	—
Rhode Island	952
Connecticut	2,759
New York	21,324
New Jersey	11,423
Pennsylvania	3,737
	———
	40,370

South.
Delaware	8,887
Maryland	103,036
Virginia	293,427
North Carolina	100,572
South Carolina	107,094
Georgia	29,264
Kentucky	11,830
Tennessee	3,417
	———
	657,527

Total 697,897.

8 Since this was written, this last and most serious danger would seem to have been removed by the acts of 1886 and 1887 regulating the presidential succession and the counting of electoral votes.

9 The history of President Cleveland’s tariff message of 1887, however, shows that, where a wise and courageous president calls attention to a living issue, his party, alike in Congress and in the country, is in a measure compelled to follow his lead.